Live Review: Offal Fest 3 - Saturday
26th July 2024
Words: Patrick O'Reilly
Having missed last year's edition of this festival I was really excited to be going this year. The festival has now grown to two full days and a Friday night pre-show, a really intriguing prospect especially with such a strong line up! Arriving for the main even on Saturday there was already a buzz in the air from what people were saying was a cracking night on Friday and a great precursor to the main event!
I was impressed with the desire and enthusiasm from the crowd, not many festivals would be able to draw in a substantial crowd for the opening slots at 1pm in the afternoon, nor have pits opening up from the very start but offal fest manages to do this consistently!
Opening the festival was Dawn of Animosity whose heavy slams got the crowd suitably wound up and ready to go, despite as mentioned the relatively early hour! Disgracing arrived on stage next with a palpable buzz, Offal Fest’s very own Jake, Jack and Lewis forming some kind of bizarre supergroup that set about unleashing a filthy torrent of death metal atrocities at a loving and expectant audience. Lewis on guitar duties is a genius move, the riffs really set this band apart and it will be great to see what they can come up with in future.
Bringing a more old school death metal feel were Norfolk five piece Thy Flesh Consumed, they benefitted from being the first band so far with five members, the sound being thick and full, the songs a mixture of brutal fast sections, brutal slams and breakdowns leaving the now rabid crowd baying for more. Time for Lewis Candlin to get onstage again, this time taking up drumming duties for Chainsaw Castration, a band whose name perfectly sums up their sound, abrasive and painful! They ripped through a very accomplished and entertaining set and certainly got the crowd moving.
More old school death metal next as Impurist stepped up, with ex-members from such legendary bands as Gorerotted, Extreme Noise Terror and Infected Disarray; this is band with real pedigree. They prove this with a tight and brutal set that flies by in a whirl of riffs and blasts leaving heads almost hanging off necks as the crowd try to keep up with these elder statesmen of death metal.
It was then time to mix things up as crazy Finnish alco-grinders 55 Gore brushed off a hangover and stepped onto the stage. A frenzied blurring of porno-grind, gore and death metal followed, sick gutturals and pig squeals abounded, and the crowd were able to enjoy a bit of a lighter atmosphere. 55 Gore won many hearts today with a spirited and entertaining performance and were one of the highlights of the whole festival. Make sure to check out their sumptuous discography boxset on Rancid Offal records, copies were available at the fest, and it is really an incredible and beautiful release!
Hard to follow a performance like that but Begging For Incest took the stage and did just that. A really brutal and savage performance made for a crazed moshpit, bodies were flying all over and the temperature in the venue was really rising. Italian deathsters Putridity were up next, putting on a supreme show of musicality, control and power. Their brutal and technical songs creating mayhem in the audience as the crowd really started to ramp up for the final straight of this incredible day.
As we reached the penultimate band there were no signs of the crowd flagging, despite temperatures now reaching insane levels, with sweat dripping from the walls of the venue! Cerebral Effusion arrived and took the temperature up a few more notches with a majestic perfromance. Blistering fast and technical with some sweet breakdowns thrown in they were a sight to behold, just about as perfect a performance you could wish for before the headliners came on.
All the way from the USA, a band who needed no introduction to the massed ranks in attendance. Skinless are a death metal institution who treated the crowd to a masterclass in brutality and violence. I don’t know how, but the crowd seemed to ramp things up and I witnessed a mosh pit unlike any I have seen for quite some time. Stage divers constantly flew back and forth across the venue as circle pits and general chaos erupted all over the place. The band were flawless reproducing their ‘Progression Towards Evil’ album in full. Every sample, every riff was greeted with reverence and awe, the band feeding off this and going harder and harder. An exemplary performance to bring day one to a close, phew!
